What You don't know can't hurt you
by The Lady Zoe
Summary: Amelia, a princess, grows very bored of being the castle's walls. So she sneaks out, over and over and over, finally exploring the world around her.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Amelia F. Jones grew up believing in the family motto, that there was only two groups of people in the world. You and everyone else. Life as a royal was dangerous, everyone strived for power and control, even if it meant murdering innocent people and thievery. Amelia knew from a young age that she wanted no part of that. No, what she really wanted was freedom, have a taste of it. Own a piece of it for herself. Princesses never had much freedom, it was all work and pain with high expectations and standards.

Freedom came at a price, she learned that at a young age, when one of her favorite cousins escaped the castle walls when they weren't supposed to, very regularly, an offense on its own punishable by house arrest, but also fell in love with a commoner, and was planning on running away with him. They were caught, and banished from the land, disgraced and abandon from the family. Nobles and royals under the age of twenty-weren't allowed to leave the castle grounds. It was forbidden. Amelia wondered often of what happened to them but was wise enough not to ask about it.

Unable to bare the thought of being sent away from her loving twin brother and parents, Amelia decided to never leave the castle walls. But the castle walls were like sweet treat for a starving person. She stuck with dreaming and hoping for a chance to escape the ever rising stone walls but she knew it would never come. She wanted to see what it really was out like there. To see for herself instead of hearing stories from the lying nobles and rich along with a few books the castle's library never bothered to burn.

The castle walls surround a medium size area, covering a few dozen large mansions that could easily have twenty three families of seven in them. The large castle sat threatening in the middle, as if it was watching the other house to make sure they wouldn't dare even think about crossing it. They would always say that it's better to be in the castle's walls, the outside world was extremely dangerous and filled with evils on the devils work. Amelia didn't believe them, she would pout and resist the urge to roll her eyes, and point out what happened regularly in the court was far dangerous than whatever was outside the castle's walls.

The more she saw the walls when she was a child the more she hated them. They were the only thing stopping her from running as far as her legs could carry her. Her one true desire. As her parents would often say, the walls were there for their protection. Too many things out there wanted to harm them. But they really meant many things out there could harm her. They thought of her as weak and pathetic. In sense it was true, when she was small child, but as she grew older the teasing didn't stop nor did they realize that she was growing to be an incredibly strong young tween. They would often exclude her in activities or leave her the task that a simple minded fool could easily do well at. It infuriated Amelia to the point where she lost her temper, and angrily punched a wall, successfully putting a small hole in the thin stone wall and breaking her hand. There was much gossip going around as the bones in her hand healed.

Her uncle seeing her strength as unrealized potential began training her, in the weapons and in hand to hand combat. By the mere age of fourteen Amelia was a very skilled warrior, due to her quick learning ability. A force even the soldiers didn't want to unleash. But despite this training she received and continued receiving, she grew bored and very much lonely. Her brother was announced the heir on their thirteen birthday. She wasn't bother by this since she didn't even want to be queen in the first place and she knew she would be a terrible queen with her restless recklessness. Since he was the heir he had many more lessons and training to attend than she. The other children and teens were bother either younger or older than she and didn't have much time to play due to their never ending lessons. Normally, Amelia would have sighed and gave into reading a nice book or practice something she hadn't quite mastered yet.

As she grown older the castle's walls grew more and more a temptation, about year ago, she had found secret escape route hidden and forgotten in the wall. She assumed it was added in in case something went terribly wrong and the castle grounds needed to be abandon quickly. She never heard or read about the escape route, she assumed the builders had told the first king to live there but he had forgotten when he had died. It made sense and would explain why there was no records about it in all the two thousand years the wall stand.

She spent the past year exploring the route, as often as she could going as far as she could ever dare to go, a few feet when she started going out, then by current times she went as far as the base of the hill were the castle and the other noble house stood on top. There was villages surround the hill about a hundred feet in each direction. The secret entrance faced the north, making the village of Harksinton the first sight you see. Amelia dreamt of visiting and exploring the village, hoping to make a friend. She didn't venture much farther than the base of the hill, fearful of getting caught and punished by her parents.

Almost a year had passed since she found the secret entrance on accident, by then Amelia had finally picked up enough courage to visit the village. Weeks went by as she completed preparations for the short trip, planning for every detail, a perfect disguise, time and day had to be picked or everything would fall apart and possibly end in a house arrested. Twice within those weeks she had considered not going but knew she would hate herself deeply if she didn't go. Careful not to let anything slip or get caught she completed her preparations the day before the intended day she wanted to go.

The morning of her planned trip her slaughter her nerves, but she managed to act her way through, taking care that her plans weren't discovered. She slipped away unnoticed and slipped on her disguise. She wore some old servant clothes that were going to be tossed weeks ago. She then bind her chest the best she could and tied her hair back. After making sure she had everything. She slipped a cloak over and headed out the secret entrance.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The walk through the plains to the village of Harksinton, was nerve wreaking. The constant fear that a guard would notice her absence and realize she sneaked out of the castle and drag her back to the castle burned constantly at her mind. The walk really was three minutes but it felt like it three hours instead. Eventually she arrived at the large village.

She tugged on her hood, making sure it was hiding her face, as she looked around in awe. She had never seen something like the village. The sights and smells were all so new. People worked all around her, building a shop at the opposite end of the street. On the other side of the shop builders were people doing their laundry at what she assumed was the laundry watering hole. Amelia wasn't sure this was after all her first time seeing people actually do work of this kind. The servants took great care to do their work at either the night and or the out of sight. It was concerned unsightly to have a servant do their work in front of nobles and other important people. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of manure, it burned at her nose. A new smell she didn't care to ever smell again.

She continued exploring the street, buying little samples of the food, trying it all out, enjoying the new tastes. Most of them weren't a refine and delicate looking as the food back home, but they had a homemade taste to them, a taste she never had before. It wasn't as good as the food in the castle but it had character and still was delicious. It was a nice change.

Amelia bit her lip to keep from squeaking as she nearly got herself ran over by the soldiers hurrying to the castle. Either they didn't care enough to notice her, or they were in such a rush that they didn't have time to notice. Judging by the reaction of the villagers who were watching, they were in a rush, Amelia noted. An olden lady, with a tight jaw and wrinkly prune face, hurried over to Amelia's side and asked if she was alright. Amelia chuckled, and smiled, "Oh don't worry about me. I'm quite alright. Takes a lot more than that to kill me." The lady smiled, opening her face up nicely, before she looked like a wicked witch ready to cast a curse, but her pleasant smile she looked like a grandmother living at the top of the world. The old lady nodded, brushing off some dirt the horses' feet had picked up off of Amelia's cloak,

"Well I'm very glad that you're safe and well. It would be a terrible shame if a visitor got ran over." She held her hand out, "It's not often that we see new folk in town. What's your name, lad?" Amelia blinked, she had never shaken someone's hand before, it was considered a commoner thing at the castle that was frowned upon. Still, she was glad her disguise could fool a wise old lady. Hesitantly, Amelia lifted her hand and join their hands. It was an odd feeling; it was obvious to her that the old woman needed a bath.

"My name is um Alfred," she almost forgot the fake name she decided to use weeks before! Luckily she remembered, "What's your name," she asked, quickly letting her hand go, after a quick shake. Commoners were weird, and getting weirder by the moment. Amelia couldn't decide if it was a good weird or not. "Oh, my name? It's Helena, but everyone calls me grannie," she laughed, "That's what you get living a long time. I don't mind, I love having so many grand babies. Oh excuse me, young lad, I have to get back to my knitting. Clothes don't make themselves don't cha know?" She curtsied then headed away.

Of course Amelia knew that clothes didn't make themselves, she just never thought about who made them. She like the rest of new generations never thought about it, they had everything they could ever possibly wanted. Royals, the rich and the nobles all of them took what they have for granted. This made Amelia wonder about the rest of the objects in the castle and where the object had come from and who had made them. Truly her adventure out the castle grey stone walls had given her a lot to think about. A great learning experience for her. She would have never thought about it otherwise.

She walked as she thought, taking care to avoid walking into things. A difficult take, considering the streets held many obstacles, like goats and carts. Amelia continued exploring the village, wondering from store to store, stall to tall, street to street, for a few short hours. The village was rather large, almost as large as the true home in the castle walls. Almost. She wondered what the castles are called among the people. To the people living there it was always referred to as the true home. She wanted to ask but didn't want to mark herself out as an outsider, well a bigger one.

She nearlywalked into a beefy middle aged man. A huge crowd was surrounding three teenagers, circling them, but giving them enough space to do whatever they were about to do. Two girls and one boy. The youngest one was juggling knives slowly her brother tossed her more and more, before finally she was jugging twenty-two in total. A marvel in its own. The crowd doubled in size as the fifteen year added knives to her juggling act. As the crowd, grew, Amelia hearing whispering. The knife thrower, name was Natalia Arlovskaya, the male was named Ivan Braginski and the other female, the oldest one was called Katyasha. They were all apparently siblings, but they somehow had different last names. None of the crowd people knew why for sure, but they did love spreading a good rumor or two. The rumors started spreading quickly. The gossip reminded Amelia of the court at the true home. Gossip there spread faster than the wild fires in the southern lands Amelia grandmother, who she was named after, told her about. She told Amelia all sorts of stories, perhaps her stories are why Amelia loved adventure so much

Right in front of her, tossing knives without a care, was the most beautiful woman, Amelia had ever seen. Natalia Arlovskaya, the name stuck in Amelia's head. Natalia wore a simple long dark dress, a common design for commoner dresses, it draped down her body fitting her figure quite nicely. She wore a dirty white apron with a large pocket, below were the apron tied around just below her chest, Natalia, Amelia decided, looked like an angel. She was too memorized by Natalia's act to notice the other two siblings' acts. Once her act was over, the crowd started cheering, putting coins in a wooden bowl as they left.

Amelia grabbed a handful of gold coins from her poach and put it in the bowl, before hurrying back home, staying out far too long that she should have. She didn't notice the surprised look of the siblings. She hurried through the streets, careful not to bump into anything. She then ran though the plains and back into the secret entrance, very out of breath by the time she got back in the castle's walls.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Amelia quickly tossed her disguise into the very back of her huge closest. She then ordered one of her many servants to draw her a bath. She was worried that the village's very strange, smells would give her secret adventures away. Amelia slipped on a soft underdress on, not wanting to be in just her underwear as she waited for the bath water to warm up.

With a sigh, she plopped herself on her giant soft bed. Her lips curled up in a content smile. Her bed was softer than clouds; it had several fluffy blankets to keep her warm during the cold nights each of them were stuffed with the finest feathers. Last she counted she had a total of twelve pillows also stuffed with the finest feathers. She literally sank into the bed, worn out from her adventure. Amelia wondered if she would see the people she met again, the teenagers that performed were incredibly interesting, she wanted to know more about them. Particularly about the girl named Natalia. Hopefully she would see them next time she went out, she really wanted to see the strange siblings again. She wonder if she could be friends with them or any other teenagers of the village. Amelia craved to have friends her age.

Deciding to go explore the other villages and explore them thoroughly, Amelia made plans to go out next week. She had much exploring to do, she hadn't even finished exploring Harksinton. There were many roads and building needing to be explored, many wonderful things about them left unknown. Amelia wanted to know all about them. She wanted to know if the village had a library or a little town house. It looked big enough to have one of each, but she couldn't sure until she explore the area thoroughly.

The villagers were strange, they had many weird customs and practices, like working in site, at the castle working was unsightly and was done out of sight. They shook hands instead of bowing like the people in the castle's wall did. The villager's strangeness filled Amelia with curiosity, and only wanted to know more about them. Her curiosity about them would be her downfall.

After a long while a servant came in after a timid knock. The servants were always nervous to enter a royal blood's room. They were known for the unpredictable fits of anger. Amelia let her in; the servant announced that the bath water was ready. Two other servants picked out a proper outfit out of Amelia's closest, for the important dinner.

'So many servants,' thought Amelia, 'for a simple task I could have done myself.' No royal or anyone important for that matter didn't have at least ten servants. Important people didn't do work like making the bed or preparing dinner. They had more important things to do like lessons or paperwork. Some days Amelia wouldn't mind having a servant to do things for her, but other days she wished to have the choice to do things for herself. Amelia slipped her underdress off and then slipped into the warm bathwater with a sigh. The two servants who had picked out an outfit for her stood by the large metal tub, waiting for their next order. Amelia waved her hand with an eye roll, dismissing them. They nodded and left the room, leaving to do their other chores.

After her bath, Amelia slipped on the dress, the one the servants had left her to wear. It was big, puffy, made out of itchy material and purple. The four things Amelia hated wearing in dresses. It had a ruffled v cut down the front. She looked like a giant grape in it. One of the servants tied a bow around the waist, while another did her hair, braiding a few blue and pink ribbons and jewels into the long straw colored hair. It was quite painful getting them out, but anything to look beautiful. Beauty was the game and Amelia was the player, while her mother was the couch. The royal purple of the dress wasn't Amelia's color. In fact dark shades of purple made her look like a moldy berry. She didn't really have a choice of what she wore. Her mother was determine to make Amelia into a proper young princess, and made all her decisions for her. Another servant started applying make-up onto her, while the servant that tied a bow around her placed jewelry onto her. Amelia felt like the dolls he used to play with when she was young.

Tonight was another important dinner, everyone made a fuss about it even though they had them every Sunday night. Despite the dinners being weekly, everyone was distracted by it, which had made it easier for Amelia to sneak out. Her many tutors didn't think twice of her absence, she usually ditched them on Sundays, along with the fact they also were very distracted by the dinner.

Amelia's mother, Queen Alice, made her twirl in her dress, showing off to her all of Amelia's beauty and fanciness in the dress. Queen Alice smiled happily, "You look so wonderful," she then walked up to her and kissed the top of her head," Like a true princess." She then linked elbows and head down to the dinner hall. On the way there the Queen reminded Amelia of proper manners and behaviors and what was expected of her. By the time they got to the doors of the dinner hall, Amelia was almost happy to see them. Almost.

She took a deep breath and straighten her back and shoulders, changing her appearance more like a princess. The two guard posted at the grand wooden doors opened them letting them inside. The guards lifted their brown fur covered caps as the women passed. The chatter quieted as the two women enter the large and spacious room. In the middle of room was a long dark wooden table, with a long rug under it. Amelia and her twin used to hide out under it, messing with the guest's toes. All of the noble's families were there along with a couple very important business people that were always invited.

Amelia and Alice headed down to their nicely made chairs, next to King Francis, and Prince Matthew. As much as she hated the stiff and boring dinners, it was nice seeing her family all together for a change. During the week they never saw each other in the same room. It was hard for the royal family to have any family time due to their important works and busy schedules.

The busy life at court kept everyone busy, with various important things. The Queen did most of the paperwork since despite her best efforts was not very good at charming people, or being a people person like her daughter and husband were. Amelia wasn't as busy like her brother. After her lessons, and lunch with her Mother, which just ends up being more lessons. She had quite a bit of free time in the evening; she usually spent the time training with the head general of the army. She hoped she could be his successor as a child, but when she got older she realized the job would go to someone in the army with much more skill and experience than she did. Still she hoped, trained and learned as much as she could.

She smiled and waved to the general as he arrived, coming in late as usual. No doubt that he had forgotten again till he was reminded by his wife. His wife was very strict and punctual but didn't like coming to these dinners so she didn't. He smiled back, giving her a cheer filled grin, then sat down in the open seat next to her. General Feliciano Vargas, apologized for being late. The king chuckled, "As long as you're not late for battle I don't mind you being late."

"Oh, good, I was caught up with walking my dogs. I lost track of time. It's quite beautiful out at night. The night time is so beautiful. I love painting it. Don't you think the night is beautiful, Princess Amelia?"

Amelia chuckled, "Quite so, but I do prefer the sun on my face."

Francis nodded in agreement. "As do I. You can't do much in the night, not without a candle or fire."

"Still," interjected Alice, not wanting to be excluded from a conversation. "The stars and moon aver vest beautiful and provide plenty of light. Many beautiful and previous flowers bloom at night."

"Yes, my dearest, you make an excellent point," said the king, shifting in his chair to face his lovely queen better. "You still can't do much in the night, other than sleep and over activities," he winked, "In the day you can do much more and so the day is much more beautiful."

Amelia sighed as the queen smacked the king's arm with disgust on her face. Amelia along everyone else tuned out the two's bickering. The couple bickered a lot. She wonder if she could fake another headache to get out of the dinner. She considered it for a minute of two then realized her mother would get quite angry with her. Growing bored she lightly kicked at her brother's feet, he usually had smething interesting to say. It was a terrible shame that he had a quiet voice, and got ignored often because of it. If people paid the slightest bit of attention to him, they would easily realize he was genius. A hilarious one at that. Matthew darted his eyes at the nobles and sighed softly. Years of having these dinners, gave them an excuse to make up a language entirely out of sighs. The sigh that he gave her was their way of telling each other that there was important and or interesting information going around. She smiled at him, and turned her attention to the chattering nobles, she couldn't hear much from them since General Feliciano chatter about his beloved dogs and pasta recipes. She did manage to her whispers of war.

The conversations shifted to a more food related one when the appetizers came out. Melted cheese over vegetables. Amelia wasn't hungry. Her trip to Harksinton had ruined her appetite. She picked at the cheese with her fork. It wasn't lady like to use her fingers. Taking care to make it look like she was far more interested in the conversation a noble was having her. The noble, Yao Wang used to be her favorite growing up. He had told her many fascinating tales and adventures. When grew up she realized his adventures were either exaggerated a lot or made up entirely. Yao had a full house with his children, his youngest was Kiku. Kiku was four years older than Amelia, and he was extremely shy and quiet. Yet somehow he and Amelia were best of friends despite the age gap. He and two of his older siblings were out traveling, trying to make a name from themselves. Amelia wished she could have gone with them. Yao coughed harshly; his sickness was starting to get to him. Luckily the sickness wasn't contagious. Despite being annoyed with his fake stories she did love him dearly, and enjoyed his company, even if he did complain often about her energetic nature.

The servants picked up the dishes from the appetizers and replaced the dishes with dinner. With dinner now in front of the hungry people, the king stood up and started giving a small speech about enjoying the little things. The king was supposed to give a speech before every meal. No one remembers why or when it started but everyone hated it. Amelia like many others weren't listening, she heard him practice the day before. While it was simple and rather dully worded, the way Francis said made it sound very beautiful.

After the speech was done, the king sat down and took a bite. The meal began, everyone started digging in discussing boring topics like the weather and what rug would look great with their curtains. The conversations were just repeats of last Sunday's dinner's conversations, along with the dinner before that and before that one as well. The repetition was driving Amelia insane. If she hadn't gone out when she did, well she didn't know what she would have done. Probably something stupid.

She picked at her food still not hungry. She had many thoughts bouncing around in her head. Her brother of course noticed, he noticed everything, but he assumed her lack of appetite was because she was full from sneaking into the kitchen again. When they were younger the twins would often sneak in to get a treat or two. The nobles are their dinner incredibly slowly, unfortunately like usual. The slow eating made the meal drag on for hours.

Eventually they did finish, they all stood up after dabbing their mouths with the nice napkins, and went into the tea room for desert and wine. Amelia loved meeting in the tea room. She love hearing about the actually interesting topics and news, with occasional tale. The room filled up with chatter outline in tension as they talked about one of the neighboring kingdoms. The two kingdoms had been rivals long before Amelia's mother family took power, a something thousand years ago. According to the chatter, the rival was rebuilding their old defenses. She wondered why they were getting worked up about a silly thing, then realized they were worried about them starting another long and bloodied war. The last two wars ended with a truce when the other neighboring kingdoms intervened and demanded a truce a gun point. Amelia kept quiet, choosing to listen rather than voicing her thoughts about it.

Servants brought out wine, tea for her mother and brother and coffee for Amelia. The nobles calmed down with the drinks. The tension diffused as the conversations turned into gossip and bragging.

Deserts were soon brought out. Simple vanilla small cakes, with icing and a small strawberry on top. Amelia ate the desert slowly, wishing they would go back to talking about what was going on outside the walls, or at least quit with the boring gossip. Gossip grew rather boring when you've heard it all before just with different wording and people. Amelia finished her desert then yawned. She excused herself for bed.


End file.
